“I prefer inspiring discussions about

design solutions to endless haggling over

prices,” says Franck Dallefrate, owner

and CEO of JPC Labo. This is why he opted

for a swissQprint Nyala LED. He and

his team understand that the focus on

application diversity, top quality and

service is a competitive trump card. The

battle over low-margin commodity

and mass-produced items is one they

happily leave to others.

More performance, more free time“We want to get the most out of our printer,”

Franck emphasises, referring not so

much to its output volume but rather to

the broad and unusual spectrum it

can handle. Of course, he also appreciates

Nyala LED’s performance and reliability.

With its predecessor of a different make,

Franck and his son would sometimes

have to drive to the premises as many as

five times a night to change material so

that a large order could be completed on

time. Today, roll to roll jobs run unat-

tended overnight. Nyala LED needs just

one day for work that used to take a

whole week with the old flatbed printer.

“Furthermore, swissQprint has an ingenious

way of handling white ink,” enthuses

Franck. With the former printer, someone

would have to visit the premises every

other day during holiday closedowns to

take care of the white print heads so

that they didn’t clog up. Nyala LED does

its own job of keeping the white ink

agitated, which is a huge relief. “In this

sense, we not only have more capacity,

but more free time as well,” grins Franck.

More off-the-wall ideas The greatest step forward, however,

is clearly the new possibilities opened

up by Nyala LED. “You can’t put a

simple price on those,” Franck points out.

His photographic clientèle is enthu-

siastically discovering varnish finishing,

multilayer printing and 3D effects.

JPC Labo originally started out as a supplier

of photographic services and indeed

develops films to this day. When Franck

took over the business from his father-

in-law around 20 years ago, he began to

restructure the company and, above all,

User report

JPC Labo, Marly, France Rather than battling it out with the rest of the field in mass-produced and commodity items, this image service provider focuses on specialised applications, high quality and all-round service. It's a successful concept in which a Nyala LED large format printer plays a key role.

to increase its diversity. JPC Labo has been

offering large format digital printing

for more than ten years. So, in addition to

analogue and large-format photo prints,

the upshot of diversification is that today’s

portfolio also includes lettering and

signage, interior decoration elements and

POS displays.

“With Nyala LED, we can be pushier

in the marketplace,” Franck observes. Thus,

customers are actively approached

with new ideas – and regularly surprised

by them, too. Those impulses come

via one of the team who is constantly out

and about, scouting for innovations.

And gradually, courage for creativity is

also awakening among customers.

They increasingly challenge JPC Labo with

off-the-wall concepts that require

subsequent working out in detail.

Three machines in one“Occasionally, we quote for projects

even though we don’t know in advance

exactly how we’re going to produce

them,” confides Franck. “But we do know

that we’ll manage the job with Nyala LED,”

he says confidently, calling the printer

Margaux tells of a school building façade made

of clipped-together plastic twin-wall sheets.

User report, September 2018© swissQprint AG, Switzerland

www.swissqprint.com

a Swiss Army knife. Another manufacturer

offered him three separate machines

for tasks that just one swissQprint large

format printer can cover: real flatbed

printing, roll printing and finishing with

effect varnish.

With Nyala LED, JPC Labo also pro-

cesses many more substrates than before.

In addition to acrylic glass, Dibond,

Forex and films, the company also prints

linoleum, glass, banner material,

canvas, polycarbonate sheets and much

more. An Esko Kongsberg cutter

handles the trimming processes. JPC Labo

plans to retire an existing Epson

Stylus printer sooner or later; Nyala LED

will also take over its tasks because,

as Franck knows,”The output quality is

on a par.”

Franck finds certain details of the

swissQprint concept especially compelling:

for example, JPC Labo regularly uses

the RIP software tiling function for large

wall coverings. The registration pins

ensure that the print images line up exactly,

and the same goes for double-sided

printing. Moreover, the 3.2×2 metre flat-

bed is ideally sized to produce room-

high elements in one piece. And talking of

one piece: “It’s fantastic that the printer

was delivered not as a bunch of subassem-

blies, but as a complete unit,” points

out Franck. “The Nyala LED was ready the

day after installation.”

Added-value service plus For an interior decoration concept in

a hotel, JPC Labo was commissioned to

deliver 1×3 meter prints on glass.

“If we were easy going, we would have

produced a small sample of it,” says

Franck. Instead, JPC Labo delivered a

1:1 sample, which wowed and won

over the customer.

When it comes to complex projects,

JPC Labo assists the process from

planning to final implementation, includ-

ing design if necessary. Franck’s

employee, Margaux, tells of a 7×20 metre

school building façade made of clipped-

together plastic twin-wall sheets. Like a

jigsaw puzzle, the printed rectangular

sheets form an overall picture. JPC Labo

meticulously planned the production

and numbered each sheet, so that all

the fitters on site had to do was clip

together the lightweight elements in the

proper sequence. “This kind of plus in

the service we offer represents genuine

added value for customers,” Franck sums up,

“and it is what sets us apart from the rest.”

Ephemerality ups the pace of orders “We live in a fast-moving world,” says Franck.

Of course, this involves stress because

customers are demanding ever tighter de-

livery deadlines. Meanwhile, product

life cycles have also become shorter. “If you

have a decoration concept implemen-

ted today, you don’t want to live with it

forever,” observes Franck. Follow-up and

replacement orders might already

arrive after just one or two years, so Franck

has few worries about capacity

utilisation in the future. On the contrary,

he wants to find new premises that

fit with the current company structure as

soon as possible, make processes

leaner and thus free up new capacities.

Info BoxJPC Labo, Marly, France

www.jpclabo.com

Segment: Photo and digital printing

Established: 1985

Employees: 5

Printer: Nyala LED

References:

– Communication and event agencies:

shop fronts, shop window and

POS displays, construction site billboards,

fabrics for mobile exhibition

stands, museum exhibition elements

– Restaurants and hotels:

interior design elements

– Artists, photographers:

one-offs with special effects

– Surgeries, hospital offices:

decorative ceiling panels

JPC Labo was the customer who

received the 1000th swissQprint machine

– a Nyala LED – in May 2018.